![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
beetsie's journalCreate a LiveJournal Account Learn more
|
You are viewing beetsie's journal Create a LiveJournal Account Learn more | Explore LJ: Life Entertainment Music Culture News & Politics Technology |
 | |
|
Who knew, when we posed between these two bunnies (courtyard of Museum Kampa, Prague, Czech Republic) a year ago...   ... that this scene would play itself out in our living room exactly a year later... |
|
| |
|
The mailman just dropped off this box of amazing fiber: It's cormo cross from This and That Farm in Danby, VT (www.thisandthatfarm.com), which is this month's fiber offering from Maybelle Farm's Fiber of the Month Club. I learned about Maybelle Farm's Fiber Club here last year (scroll down to almost the bottom) and decided to join this year. Always love to hear that mail truck. I bought a kit for a beaded neck scarf from the Fiber Studio in Henniker at their NH Sheep & Wool booth this May. I've started the scarf according to the pattern several times but keep putting it down. In the meantime I used a small handful of the beads and a minimal portion of the lovely chenille yarn and made a small beaded scarflet from it (more like jewelry), which I love. The scarf was to be for my mother, the scarflet was gifted recently to a friend who loves it and mentions that she wears it often. So I've decided to remake the scarf into the scarflet (perhaps several scarflets, as I have enough material). Detail of the beads: |
|
| |
mrdubyah likes to say there's no such thing as one rabbit, and apparently he's right. On Mother's Day we acquired this little guy... ...an agouti angora cross breed male, and on Father's Day we acquired this new guy...  ...also an angora cross male, thus creating an addition to the family entertainment center...  ...where they will reside until we build a shed or they get in the way, whichever comes first. So far they fit perfectly well in what has become the fiber studio anyway. I don't think there is any risk of my becoming this obsessed with the whole rabbit thing (poor woman, I hope she gets the help she needs), but I can see how it can happen (take my fiber stash, for instance).  I have been pulling up all the milkweed in the dooryard this year as it is highly toxic to rabbits and I don't want to take any chances. I hope the monarch butterflies will find milkweed somewhere nearby to feast and breed on this year. I'm off to share a carrot with my bunnies... |
|
| |
|
I've caught some kind of bug, but it seems like it's a desirable bug with beneficial side effects. Near as I can tell it's a bad case of FO Fever. I think I caught it from Major Knitter while visiting her Finish-or-Frog-It group on Ravelry. Or perhaps it came from Susan who hangs out at the nakniswemodo group (that's the National Knit A Sweater a Month Dodecathon for the uninitiated) also on Ravelry - Sue seems to have a pretty bad case. Now that I think of it, Ravelry might just be the source for several afflictions I've had recently, like obsessive-compulsive disorder, and some kind of trance-like spell that causes me to stare at one place for hours. Is that going around? I hope the Health Department doesn't shut them down. Just before Christmas I cast on for Avast for DS and I just finished it last night (well, more like the wee hours of this morning).
The photo below is from the outside, showing how I lined up the purl row stitches of the facing with the zipper teeth, and placed the sewn stitches just behind the knit stitches of that purl row. I used a heavy duty black thread to match the black zipper which seems to disappear when the stitches are tugged tightly. The next shot shows the back side, how my sewing method creates a pattern of two short stitches right next to each other, which I like better than a regular back stitch with its long overlaps that I find unsightly in this kind of non-faced zipper placement. I also did a catchstitch edge (scroll down on that page, looks like a bunch of shallow XXXXXs) to attach the outer zipper edge to the facing. I've always loved working that stitch in handsewing. It allows for great flexibility when working with a knit fabric. This time I used a lightweight serger thread.
 No worry that he'll claim it as his own as he could barely stand to wear the wool next to his skin for the two minutes it took to take this shot (yes, the spinner of a fleece a month has a serious skin sensitivity to the stuff - he can only stand to have it pass through his heavily callused palms and fingers).Now to get it packed up and shipped off to DS while it's still cold out. And I can feel another wave of the fever come on as I head off to create the next FO... |
|
| |
|
After spending the morning moving furniture around to create his new 'fiber studio'...  MrDubyah decided to start weaving. First he learned how to finish the warp (the former owner of the loom had begun the warping process). He kept returning to this... for instructions, learning to tie the warp onto the fabric beam with half a square knot, finishing the knots when he had all the warp threads even. For weft, I offered him a big spool of peach chenille from Peter Patchis...  Then he had to decide on a pattern and picked the first one in the book, and voila!  The book is signed by the author for the loom's former owner with a poignant message... |
|
| |
|
Had lunch with Katrinkles, MrDubyah and some friends at the farmer's market downtown yesterday...  Seven Stars Bakery makes great sandwiches. Also bought the beets and greens for making these for my breakfast...  I have since learned to put the fruit and a tomato on the bottom - it blends more easily. Another breakfast treat I learned from a fellow gardening spinner recently... ...cheese omelet with squash/pumpkin flowers (if I use pumpkin flowers I remove the stamen which can be a little tough). Lastly, here are some pictures of 'Bun-Bun' who has been posing as live statuary in my garden this year. |
|
| |
|
We sailed from Newport to Block Island weekend before last - well, technically we raced but considering our finish (race committee hung around a little extra for us, nice of them), it was more of a leisurely cruise.  (My new Earth shoes have made for pretty good sailing shoes, except for the funny tan). Note the 'baby strainer' hanging from the life rails - that's because the friends who own the boat often sail with their dog. Not this weekend, though. On this weekend we were joined by another boat with two other couples, rafting together in BI's New Harbor. What's truly amazing here is that three of the four couples have all known each other since our URI days, with the fourth couple coming into the picture when one of them was a roommate of another old URI friend. The guys and some of the gals have all raced/sailed together for 35+ years. While relaxing on board after the race I started Cobblestone... ...which started as an 8 lb fleece purchased at Watson Farm, Jamestown, back in May. We might have bought several fleeces that day ourselves, but this one was purchased by a friend who got caught up in the whole fleece-buying frenzy. She doesn't knit and doesn't spin (more proof that the DSM-V needs to include a category for this disorder), but wanted a sweater for her son who is at Lyndon State, VT and doesn't own a wool sweater. She did all the carding, MrDubyah did the spinning (half of it anyway, that fleece will make at least two sweaters), and I'm doing the knitting. Goal is to have it done by the end of the month.What's remarkable about MrDubyah's yarn for this sweater is that it finally occurred to us to spin in the opposite direction to compensate for my left-handed knitting style, so in other words, S-spin and Z-ply. I'm amazed at the difference it's making in the fabric. Oh, and underneath the sweater? Babette - the other family project... |
|
| |
|
Add to the list of things I never thought I'd be able to do...  ...administering twice daily insulin shots to an animal. Wicker developed signs of diabetes earlier this summer and after many vet visits, they have regulated her blood sugar with two insulin shots a day. Amazingly they use the same Humulin N and syringes people use (but without health insurance to help pay for it). Wicker is staying with us while her 'mommy' is visiting her mother. It's wonderful having a dog around the house again. |
|
| |
|
Just spent another weekend spinning at a country fair. This has been the highlight of our summer. The first was Foster Old Home Days, a long tradition in my family. I used to use my stint serving dinner there as a kid as 'experience' when applying for waitressing jobs. That was when Foster Center Baptist ran the dining hall. This year we visited the blacksmith shop...
...to order a new spindle for the great wheel. Here's someone who quickly became an ace at the great wheel on her first try...
Next came Washington County Fair, a tradition with my own kids for years - I'd pick Katrinkles up at Camp Hoffman and we'd stop for an afternoon at the fair, year after year. A Guild member binding off her triangle shawl... Then, of course, there's MrDubyah doing his thing... Someone asked if he was a teacher, and I said, not professionally, but he comes from a long line of teachers and it's in his blood. We love to watch him teach spinning. So after the fair we drove down to Westerly to look at this... |
|
| |
|
Having just come back from Europe ourselves, we read Froma Harrop's column about the demise of the dollar (Providence Journal, 7/3/08) with great interest. We could not agree more. I would just add that her impression holds true east of Paris as well, into Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic (an EU member, converting from Koruna to Euro in the next year or two). We were also quite surprised (although the clerk at the Citizens Bank downtown had warned us the day we went in to buy Euros) that no one wants American dollars or American Express travelers checks, not even the banks. We did eventually manage to cash a few travelers checks at a Sparkasse, and thankfully Visa and MasterCard are international (if you remember to call them ahead of time and tell them where and when you will be traveling). Well, can you blame them? Every Saturday the ProJo prints up the real estate sales, and I've noticed many Sellers (i.e., defaulted mortgage holders) have names such as Deutsche Bank who are holding millions of worthless American dollars' worth of real estate right now. Why would they want to buy more American dollars off of piddling tourists? We also saw small cars everywhere (although admittedly we rented a big one since we were, at times, transporting upwards of 9ish people and the occasional bicycle, but it was a diesel and standard shift and actually did very well in the mileage [kilometerage?] department). We also saw rooftop solar panels on houses and barns everywhere, which the inhabitants are encouraged to install with generous government incentive programs. Solar panels power road signs and advertisement kiosks. Windmills dot the landscape. The most troubling aspect of all of this is that Americans still think this whole thing will "turn around." They haven't a clue that this is just the beginning of a very different financial landscape. And our leaders are terribly short-sighted, reactionary only to the most immediate public self interest while mostly attending to the interests of their own financial backers, and will do absolutely nothing to steer us in a new direction. Without further ado, here's Froma's column:
|
|
| |
|
It's getting tough to keep up with the neighbors around here. They've recently installed solar on the roof in order to power their new garden water feature A couple of house wrens have taken residence in the house. The bath is used by absolutely everyone else - jays, robins, sparrows, cat birds and mocking birds to name a few. They don't seem to mind the water feature, though they do complain when the water runs out. Knitting stuff: Finished my second Fiesta Rayon Boucle shawl. Cast on 40 stitches (size 15 needle), knit one row, continue in garter stitch increasing on EACH end of every row, until you have four arm-lengths of yarn left, then cast off loosely. Don't know who to attribute this pattern to - it's been around for awhile apparently although I've only recently discovered it. The Thursday night Stitch 'n' Giggle ladies are all going to make them with yarn I bought from WEBs last week. Here's some (still waiting for 4 skeins of clematis) - Also making Ilga Leja's Sea Urchin. from Louet MerLin bought at Lace Wings a few months ago. (By chance, the magnetic pattern place markers, from Scout Swag, match perfectly!) There will be enough of this aqua MerLin left over to make my dream sweater a la Jane Thornley. Been saving up skeins and skeins of related colors with which to do something really creative. Dye pot is brewing something that will probably be a light blue (I'm told) using all my spent iris blossoms - I'm only adding the purple and maroon irises as they are the ones that stain my fingers. Using rain water. Note the new Earth Flight shoes in khaki. I wanted a pair of these since seeing a display of Earth shoes at Whole Foods in Annapolis last month. Really comfy, like walking on clouds. Some people had a problem with these being too big and having to cinch up a lot on the velcro, but I have a high arch and need all the extra velcro I can get. Totally dorky, but I'm all about my comfort level when it comes to my feet. |
|
| |
|
I jut finished a quickie lace project - from start to gifting in less than a week!  This was my mom's birthday present. It's the Two Dozen Rosebuds, Sweetheart scarf pattern and a pretty pink wool that I bought at A Touch of Twist at Rhinebeck in October. The pattern is by Patricia Franklin. It measures 63" x 10.5". I used a size 5 Knitpicks Options 32" needle. The yarn had no label so I'm not sure of the yardage, exact fiber (definitely wool, though) or name. The pattern doesn't specify a length but I notice from the picture that the original had far fewer repeats than mine. I had plenty of yarn so I just kept going. It also calls for a 10" stockinette section in the back , both sides then get knit simultaneously from the back of the neck out to the ends in a U-shape. In retrospect I might have shortened that 10" stockinette part, or even made the lace go all the way around the back of the neck especially since mine is much longer, which might have made wearing it more versatile. Something to think about in future projects. But I like it, and most of all my mom likes it. Lace knitting really is about the yarn overs, though, isn't it? If the pattern isn't lining up in the row I'm in, it's invariably because of a missed YO two rows earlier. After awhile, though, I got myself back into the rhythm that I learned while doing Swan Lake - "this-way, over, knit, over, that-way," the this-ways and that-ways being K2togs and SSKs, and I sing this to myself either silently or aloud if no one's home to keep the rhythm going. On the spinning front, He's been washing and drying wool all weekend and is carding it while watching the Super Bowl as I write this. These latest fleeces are destined to be a family project. The Bims has even expressed an interest in coming up for the dyeing session down the road. There were a dozen turkeys in the yard Friday morning. Silly dinosaurs. |
|
| |
|
In the fall of '06, in anticipation of teaching beginners how to knit at the Boston Knit-Out and Crochet, I decided it was time for me to learn to knit right-handed. I've been practicing ever since with just one of my many ongoing projects - knitting dishcloths.   I'm a lefty but recognize that I live in a right-handed world. My mother taught me to knit "backwards" by sitting opposite me and having me perform all the maneuvers mirror-image of what she did. She was trying to be progressive - growing up in Germany in the 30's and 40's everyone learned to knit (and do everything else) right-handed. When I turned out to be a lefty and it didn't seem to bother any of my teachers, I guess she felt my knitting should be backwards, too. Nowadays I just have to be careful when doing button bands or anything asymmetric to flip the pattern, and when I'm knitting lace it's either going to be backwards (my Mystery Stole #3) or I have to start the chart from the other side and reverse K2tog's and SSK's (my Trellis Scarf). Why knit "righty?" For one, it made knitting Lady Eleanor a whole lot easier - I could knit back and forth without flipping the whole shawl every eight stitches of the entrelac pattern. But I also have learned that if I were ever to take a fancy knitting workshop I'd likely have to knit right-handed. Some teachers won't enroll left-hand knitters because they say it slows down the whole class. So I could learn a technique right-handed in a class and then just flip it when I go to actually use it at home. Years ago I tried teaching righties to knit right-handed in the same method my mom taught me. I remember sitting on a train stopped for hours on a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean somewhere between Valencia and Barcelona, a sirocco raging just outside (which is why the train had stopped), eating oranges, olives and bread, and trying to teach a friend sitting opposite me how to knit. Don't remember if she ever learned. Nowadays I prefer to teach lefties to knit right-handed - I think it's easier in the long run and makes it easier for them to learn new skills from others, from books, from videos, etc. Current WIPs include the Elizabeth Zimmermann sweater I'm making for Katrinkles which was originally going to be saddle-shouldered but apparently wanted to be a seamless hybrid instead. I prefer how this looks. There will also be a steek in my future. Pictures and more on this later. Katrinkles gave me two balls of her own Koolaid-dyed Knitpicks bare for my birthday! We attended Fiddlers and Fisherman at Common Fence Point recently where katrinkles, jwgh and I were all knitting projects with her hand-dyed yarn. The one on the left will be Valentine's Day socks. The one on the right I've paired with some leftover Phildar yarn for a Chevron Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts which she also gave me.  The latest FO is a baby sweater from the same book - the Child's Placket Neck Pullover, knit in the style of the Tulip Jacket with eight colors of Dream in Color. This is for the baby of Katrinkles friends.   |
|
| |
|
Last week Dave spun up some silk for me to make these ornaments for the RI Spinner's Guild Ornament Swap. I knitted up a 24 stitch by 30 row swatch, garter stitch, applying pearly beads with a tiny crochet hook, and sewed them onto some vintage ornaments. That way we had ornaments that were made by both of us. I actually won my own ornament back in the swap which pleased me very much.  Today I got to do all three of my jobs. This morning I met with the plumber regarding Nana's house. Let's just say being the landlord is not my favorite thing in the whole wide world. But now it's off to do a little typing. And later I teach a little piano - dessert. It's nice that that comes at the end of most days. Just got a gig to play at a house party later in the month! Looking forward to that. Thankfully, before my day began I heard this story by Sonn Sam about his brother on a RI-This I Believe segment on WRNI. Helps put things into perspective. It is recommended listening. Scroll down for it, it is dated Dec 4th. |
|
| |
|
This year I'm grateful for a wonderful family, old and new friends, and the health with which to enjoy them. Here's my latest project, begun last night at Sue's, which I'm making for someone who has liked this color since she was a little girl: I encountered these on my woods walk this morning: Happy Thanksgiving everyone! |
|
| |
|
New toys:  My new little spindle and some cotton fiber! I went to a workshop given by Celia Quinn on spinning a variety of fibers yesterday. (If you click on this link you will find her recipe for a sesame milk hand lotion which sounds interesting and I hope to try later today.) I tried to send mrdubyah to this workshop as he's the spinner in the family now, but he'd rather a) spin and b) send me to these things and then glean what info/techniques he wants to learn from my experience. And there were a few he liked, especially tips on keeping your spinning consistent from beginning to end of a project by maintaining the same thickness/size in the single and the same amount of twist in the ply. He loved the idea of checking spin by checking ply every once in awhile using a hook or even the hook on the wheel. As for spinning different kinds of fiber, at the moment he's enjoying spinning different types of wool. He and katrinkles are cooking up a field trip to buy a fleece for The Boy's sweater. Celia's discussion about Sally Fox of FoxFibre intrigued me so I looked up her story. It is recommend reading.
My latest project is finishing this: Well, the season quickly approaches where we are reminded "While shepherds watched their flocks by night, all seated on the ground..." (All I can think of when I hear that verse now is how they're all gonna get Lyme disease.) |
|
| |
 We went to Brooklyn recently to visit iandavid in his new digs. We took a long walk down the length of Prospect Park. The foliage was beautiful. The Bims wore his Urban Aran which I made for him a year ago. I wonder if BrooklynTweed, or the Bims for that matter, would be embarrassed or amused if they met each other in the subway one of these days, both wearing their Urban Arans. I guess that's the risk one takes when posting a project on the web - and something I hadn't considered a year ago when I started this sweater since the Bims was still living in Boston. After Dim Sum in Chinatown we visited the Cloisters. Great weekend. I resurrected an old double knitting project after Cindy loaned me a book on the subject, knitting a motif from the book into the middle section of this baby blanket.  katrinkles tells me she recently rummaged through my junk drawer looking for ideas for jewelry designs for some exciting new accounts. Yesterday she met with her clients and got rave reviews on samples inspired by my junk drawer! And she based one of her designs on things from that drawer that her brother played with when he was a kid. Funny, I look at that drawer and it all still looks like junk to me. |
|
| |
 Oma had us over for Maultaschen the other day. It's an all-day project to make the noodle dough, then the filling (turkey, by the way), then create each individual Maultasch, and then cook them in a broth.     and when they are all done they are so wonderful!  Also check out her late season dahlias  |
|
| |
 The dahlias are still blooming, as is the Montvilla on the arbor, and the basil and cilantro are still going strong, but the frost can't be too far away, can it? The raspberries are still producing enough for each morning's breakfast cereal, and the mint still spices up the afternoon teapot.  NY Sheep & Wool (aka Rhinebeck) was a blast!    We watched sheep and goats being prepped for judging, others being auctioned off, shorn or herded. It was a real old-timey agricultural fair on the one hand, and major end-user's event on the other. mrdubyah got a beautiful fleece and a lovely new (used) wheel on which to spin it.   The Ravelry Party was so much fun! mrdubyah went as D.H. I got my picture taken with Bob (Jess and Casey didn't want to get left out).  Here they were, trying to get everyone's attention for the raffles.   and this was some of the crowd (note "Tempting" in the foreground).  Somebunnyslove got a prize! Geoff said I could take his picture if someone would help him finish the neck of his sweater, which Ann did.  You can see it finished about half way down this page. Then, to really confuse us, tired as we were by Saturday evening, everywhere we went we kept running into people in period dress who had been involved in a reenactment of the burning of Kingston by the British 230 years ago. We wondered if, by crossing the Hudson, we had perhaps crossed some kind of time warp when these people sat next to us at dinner.  As Oma says, going anywhere with mrdubyah is always an adventure. |
|
| |
 When something has to dry in a hurry I use my octopus dryer and fan. These are skeins of MY first homespun (probably 20 years old already!) which I will use together with mrdubyah's Jake to finish my Rorschach. Hopefully it will look "unique" rather than just plain weird! |
|
